Dovedale, is arguably the prettiest of the Derbyshire Dales. Already designated as a `Site of Special Scientific Interest' owing to it's rich and delicately balanced biodiversity and protected as an `Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty', Dovedale is entirely within the Peak District National Park and is owned mainly by the National Trust.

 

For much of its length the Dove follows a meandering course through the gritstone and shale of the High Peak moorlands and forms the boundary between Derbyshire and neighbouring Staffordshire, before tumbling down past Longnor and Hartington and through the series of spectacular limestone gorges at Beresford Dale, Wolfscote Dale, Milldale and Dovedale to form arguably the Peak District's most famous and most beautiful landscape at the southern end of the Dove Valley.

 

The Dove Valley is a walker's Paradise and the fabulous riverside walk meanders tantalisingly between unfolding steeply wooded ravines and hillsides to reveal white limestone rock formations carved into fantastic towers, caves and spires with names like Raven's Tor, Lion's Head Rock, Twelve Apostles, Reynard's Cave, Lover's Leap and Tissington Spires.

 

Caves in the Dove Valley have been used for human habitation since the hunter-gatherers of the last Ice Age, and early Bronze-Age farmers used Reynard's Cave to bury their dead 5,000 years ago. Evidence shows that the caves were probably used by shepherds during the Roman occupation, and later place-name evidence at Thorpe reflects a Danish influence prior to the Norman Conquest. Pilsbury Castle, whose remains brood above the valley to the north of Hartington was probably built by William the Conqueror, and during Medieval times, pack-horses carrying goods across country followed a route which crossed the famous Viator's Bridge in Milldale, made famous by its association with Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton of `The Complete Angler' fame in the 17th century.